Packers Film Study. Dom Capers Unleashed the Hounds

Despite their current undefeated status, much has been made of the Green Bay Packers’ pass rush, or lack of it, this season – all with good reason. Without consistent pressure, opposing quarterbacks have had the time to rack up some gawdy yardage numbers and complete a plethora of big plays on the Packers’ secondary.

We have all been in a quandry – wringing our hands and nervously rocking back and forth while mumbling to ourselves, “where’s the pass rush… where’s the pass rush…”

The main focus of course was on Clay Matthews. We kept reading about how Matthews is grading out so highly per the coaches’ evaluation, but where were the sacks and big plays? After seeing Matthews over and over engage with a blocker and then just pull up, without going any further, it became apparent to me CMIII just did not have the green light to go hog-wild after the QB.

At the other outside OLB, the common refrain was that “Walden hasn’t done anything” (which I fully disagree with). Walden has also graded out well on the coaches’ charts for handling his primary responsibilities. So were the Packers’ pass-rushers under performing this season as many thought, or just doing what they were told?

Much has been made of how much more Capers is blitzing this season than in years past. However, when Capers has blitzed out of the Okie (2-4-5), it’s been a straight linebacker dog or a defensive back off the edge. The DL rush patterns have been simply straight ahead – very vanilla stuff. Watching other teams generate pressure on Aaron Rodgers with a variety of DL and LB stunts, I continually would wonder why we weren’t seeing similar tactics from the Packers.

After many of these hand-wringing and chair-rocking sessions of my own, I became convinced the Packers players were just doing what the coaches wanted; play more of style where containment is the primary responsibility, the infamous bend, but don’t break mantra.

Well after the Packers did plenty of bending AND breaking against the Chargers, something had to change.

Charles Woodson was the first to sound the alarm, publicly wondering if the Packers should be doing more creative things to put their playmakers in a position to make plays. For his part, Dom Capers pointed to how much the Packers were blitzing this season to show that they were, indeed, trying to create more of a pass rush.

But quantity doesn’t trump quality. It has appeared to me all year that Dom Capers has had some tight reins on his OLB’s, and I believe that’s a big reason the Packers are playing so much better against the run this season. With the exception of the first Vikings game when Adrian Peterson sprung loose for some big gains, the Packers have successfully “contained” their opponents’ rushing attacks.

Many have speculated that Dom Capers has been holding back, not wanting to show all of his cards too soon in the season. Personally, I don’t buy that argument for a second. I simply think he lost a bit of his aggressive attitude.

The Chargers game was an embarrassment to the defense. You knew that Charles Woodson would be a man on a mission against the Vikings – the question was, would Capers get back to his “mad scientist” ways and dial up the creativity and quality of his blitzing schemes, as opposed to just running more?

The answer, of course, is that he did both. He obviously took the handcuffs off of Clay Matthews and allowed Charles Woodson to play the type of role I think he is destined for with the Packers – neither a traditional cornerback or safety, but rather a roving disruptor that is always around the ball.

Capers let Woodson set the tone on the very first passing play of the game:

Instead of coming off the edge, Woodson appears to be keying on Adrian Peterson, while approaching the line. As the ball is snapped, he hesitates, eyeing Peterson. The hesitation convinces the Vikings’ center to go help his guard with Ryan Pickett and as soon as Woodson sees that Peterson is not getting the ball he shoots the gap left by the center. Ponder is sent an early message with an unusual straight up-the-gut blitz by a cornerback.

A few minutes later, Capers calls for a a DL stunt combined with a blitz – just the sort of play that has been sorely lacking this season:

The three players you want to watch is Jarius Wynn at left end, Clay Matthews just outside him and Desmond Bishop lined up dead even with the center. As the ball is snapped, Wynn takes an exaggerated inside rush, heading for the area where the center was. He attracts the attention of right tackle Loadholt before he is picked up by the right guard. At the same time, Bishop circles behind Wynn on a blitz, again catching the eye of Loadholt. While all of this is going on, Matthews has been forgotten about, getting a free run at Ponder. Loadholt doesn’t know where to turn, but miraculously wheels at the last second to just get a hand on Matthews and Ponder does a great job stepping up to avoid the sack. This is a fantastic example of how you can give Matthews playmaking opportunities just by creating some havoc and confusion in the area next to him.

Finally, towards the end of the first quarter, Capers again goes where he has rarely gone – a six-man rush:

Before the play begins, you’ll see Jarret Bush on the near side make his presence felt as a possible blitzer, then drop off the line and back into a coverage position. Meanwhile, you can see Morgan Burnett on the far side creeping up for the blitz. As the ball is snapped, both Jarius Wynn and C.J. Wilson slant to the left, taking blockers with them, while Walden and Burnett blitz off the right edge. The intent here is to split apart the Vikings line, creating a lane for Clay Matthews, who circles around behind Wynn and Wilson. The gap is created, but Matthews is slowed down just enough to come up short. However, the overall pressure of the six man rush forces Ponder to get rid of the ball, and Woodson, who tracked Shancoe all the way from the other side of the formation, almost gets himself an interception.

… the Packers blitzed on an astronomical 74.4 percent of Ponder’s drop-backs, the most they’ve sent five or more rushers in Capers’ 46 games (including playoffs) as defensive coordinator. After blitzing on 58.3 percent of pass plays in the teams’ first meeting – Capers’ previous high-pressure high – this was off the charts.

In addition, Capers blitzed a defensive back on 19 of 39 (48.7 percent) of Ponder’s drop-backs Monday, the Packers’ highest DB blitz percentage over the last four seasons. Ponder completed only 5 of 17 (29.4 percent) of his passes for 52 yards against those blitzes.

So yes, Capers went off the charts blitzing in this game – against a rookie quarterback. This is not something that he can or would want to try to do every week. But as I wrote previously, it’s not the quantity of blitzes, it’s the quality (and creativity). If he continues to do the unexpected, the confusion and resulting pressure will come. And then we can all stop nervously rocking back and forth…

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Have been wondering all season as to the reason behind the straight up attack. Packers don’t have the physical studs for a push rush, so why keep going there? It was enjoyable to see the results of the creativity, and the confusion it caused. Maybe Caper’s has been holding back and just decided to feed the dogs on Monday night.

As usual, nice job Al.

http://allgbp.com Jersey Al

Thanks! And read Ron’s comment below – I think he nails what Capers was probably doing this season…

wim

best website on the packers on the net. serious and knowledgeable. keep up the great work.

http://allgbp.com Jersey Al

Thanks Wim!

Ron LC

Great blitz analysis, Al. Agree with “wim” – You and the rest of the guys are as good as it gets.

I agree with you on the “holding back until some strategic point in the season.” That makes no sense at all. What does make some sense is DC wanted to change his scheme to confuse opponents O’s. It didn’t work and I think he’s now going back to the riskier but more agressive approach of last year. As it turned out the new approach was riskier. What was not anticipated was the number of big plays the new scheme allowed. I’m sure they felt that the opponents would have to work hard and eat up clock to score (bend, but don’t break. It didn’t work. In some games it appeared the opponents could score at will.

Hopefully, lesson learned. If so, sit back and enjoy the rest of the season. Go Pack!

http://allgbp.com Jersey Al

excellent reasoning there, Ron. And thanks for the compliment! Much appreciated…

Michalske

Excellent article and I agree with Ron in general. But I think we can’t forget that Williams was injured for the first part of the season, as well as Burnett needing to grow into his role once Collins went out for the season. When you only have 3 good cover DBs, its hard to blitz a lot or even be creative with your LBs up front. When have 5 or 6 good cover DBs, as the PAckers now have again with mostly healthy players, you can be much more creative.

So my feeling is that while Capers wasn’t playing rope-a-dope out of his own preference, he was still making a conscious decision to play rope-a-dope based on the overall situation (productive offense, injured defense).

http://allgbp.com Jersey Al

Thanks Michalske and let me say I appreciate your comments. You always have something good to add.

BTF

I’d like to echo the praise for the article and the site and all it’s writers in general. As a long distance Packer fan it’s a great place to come and learn and chat with other fans..

I really enjoy articles like this which go beyond the superficial. Let’s hope we view Monday night as a turning point. Only question I have is what are we going to argue about if the D does get itself fixed…

http://allgbp.com Jersey Al

Don’t worry, I’ll come up with something. Just waiting for Crosby’s first miss…

homerunsimpson

hmmm… im not entirely convinced our D is fixed. It was encouraging for sure. But one thing that kinda bothers me is that we’ve been stopping the run. 3rd and longs are when you dial up the blitz, and weve been terrible in 3rd down conversions. also curious to see if they will double raji, cm3 and neal. I have more confidence in neal than wilson or wynn to win those one on ones. great article though i read this site almost every day now

http://allgbp.com Jersey Al

Almost? Damn, I gotta work harder…

Dan

Good article and good comments, I was baffled regarding the defence all year, something just didn’t seem right. They were terrible compared to last year. Watching Monday nights game was refreshing. It was last years D. They took thier game to the vikings instead of playing back. I was starting to get on DC until Monday. Let’s keep it up. Getting Neal back and removing Burnets club can only help. Go Pack!

Dan

The more I think about this 1st half defensive mess the more confusing it gets. Why try to fix something that’s not broke? The D was Awsome last year with the scheme they were running. A Top 5 that won a lot of games. I know the bottom line is the Pack went 8-0 while experimenting, but why experiment? I’m hoping it was due to injuries in the secondary.

Oppy

I agree with Dan and a few other posters-

I think the bulk of the issue has been a banged up and/or under-performing secondary in regards to Capers play-calling during the first half of the season.

Between Tramon’s shoulder, Shields’ sub-par performance for much of the season so far, and Woodson’s decline in coverage (Yes, his coverage HAS declined).. And the killer, the loss of Nick Collins indefinitely, Dom had to scale it all back.

Especially in regards to safety play- look back to previous years; when there’s an issue at the safety position, Capers plays VERY conservatively up front.

With Tramon again healthy, Shields picking up his level of play, and Peprah/Burnett settled in, there’s enough horsepower in the defensive backfield to start utilizing all the chess pieces to generate chaos, first and foremost being Charles Woodson.